ROSS Lyon will coach in his fourth Grand Final in five seasons on Saturday, but just seven years ago the then assistant coach was flying so far under the radar he was not among the 20 or so candidates initially shortlisted for the St Kilda coaching position.

It was September 2006 and the Saints had embarked on a search to replace deposed coach Grant Thomas.
Thomas had been sacked less than four days after St Kilda was bundled out in the first week of the finals by Melbourne.

The Saints' season had been a step backwards after their 2004 and 2005 preliminary finals appearances, and the club board decided a new coach was needed to take their prodigiously talented young list to a premiership.

At the time, however, Lyon had more pressing things on his mind. As the Sydney Swans midfield coach he was in the heat of a finals campaign that would take the Swans to their second Grand Final in a row against West Coast.

The Swans had hung on to win the first premiership-decider against the Eagles by four points, but would fall one point short in the re-match.

In the second clash, Lyon had to contend with one of the best midfields of all time – Dean Cox, Chris Judd, Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr (Kerr missed the 2005 Grand Final with injury).

Simply being entrusted with combating the Eagles' on-ball division spoke volumes of the esteem he was held in by Swans coach Paul Roos.

Lyon's coaching apprenticeship was then in its 11th season. After injury prematurely ended his playing career in 1995, the former Fitzroy/Brisbane Bears utility had worked under three premiership coaches – Robert Walls (Richmond, 1996-97) David Parkin (Carlton, 2000-02) and Denis Pagan (Carlton 2003) – before joining the Swans in 2004.

In addition to his vast assistant coaching experience, he had also coached Carlton's VFL team from 2000-02.
Despite such a solid grounding, Lyon was overlooked when consultants Stride Sports Management commenced the initial search for Thomas' successor.

AFL.com.au recently spoke with Stride director Ian Foote, who said nearly 100 candidates were considered, including existing senior coaches such as Roos, Port Adelaide's Mark Williams and North Melbourne's Dean Laidley.

"Some coaches were so heavily entrenched at their existing clubs that it was not worth pursuing them, but otherwise we pretty much took as broad an approach as possible," Foote said.

Stride then quickly whittled that pool down to an initial shortlist of about 20 candidates for a Saints subcommittee to consider.

That subcommittee consisted of then Saints CEO Archie Fraser, Ken Sheldon, Robert Walls and 1966 premiership hero Ross Smith.

Those four men then cut the list of candidates to about eight, using a 'perfect coach' model the Saints had developed over the previous six months.

Using the characteristics of the 'perfect coach' as the benchmark, each candidate's strengths and weaknesses were identified.

Sheldon recalls it was at this point Lyon entered the coaching race.

"His name came up in a discussion with Stephen Silvagni and I wrote it down on a piece of paper – it was as simple as that," Sheldon told AFL.com.au this week.

"I had coached against him previously and Robert had coached with him and was friends with him.
"Once Ross' name was raised, 'Wallsy' said, 'I can vouch for this bloke,' and once his name was put on the shortlist it rated right up there with the others."

Fraser recalls Lyon was added to the mix slightly later, when the Saints were in the process of crunching the second shortlist of eight down to the three or four candidates who would be formally interviewed.

Even though Lyon's name had not been seriously raised until then, Fraser said St Kilda had never discounted him, explaining that the Saints' selection criteria had included a guideline that they would not pursue more than one candidate from a club.

From the Swans, the subcommittee chose to pursue high-profile assistant John Longmire, which meant it had to put Lyon on the back burner.  

Longmire was quickly installed as the odds-on favourite by most in the media. If Roos was seen as the Swans' Mick Jagger, Longmire was their Keith Richards, with Lyon happy to keep the beat in the background Charlie Watts-style.

After conducting four or five informal interviews and putting some candidates through a four-hour psychometric test, the subcommittee had narrowed its list down to Longmire, Collingwood assistant Guy McKenna and Western Bulldogs assistant Chris Bond.

But the subcommittee felt it had to add another candidate to the mix, Fraser said.

"We talked to Longmire and at that stage we were working through the process and it wasn't until we felt that we needed to add somebody that Ross came into the mix," Fraser said.

"But Ross was someone we always felt like we were going to have a look at.

"He came in a little bit later but certainly not at the tailend, we were probably 40 per cent of the way through the process."

While their memories of when Lyon joined the Saints coaching race understandably differ after so long, Fraser, Sheldon and Walls agree that once in the running the low-profile Swan quickly caught up with Longmire, McKenna and Bond.

From there, the foursome were subjected to survival of the fittest, HR style.

It kicked off with first interviews of up to three hours, when the candidates were asked to present to the subcommittee on their football philosophies and visions for the Saints.

Matthew Rendell, who had been an assistant coach under Thomas from 2002-06, was also scheduled to interview, but withdrew.

Lyon, Longmire, McKenna and Bond had either already subjected themselves to a four-hour psychometric test, or were about to.

They had also answered a series of about 25 questions devised by Fraser and Foote to measure them against the 'perfect coach', ranking themselves on a scale of one to five, for example, on their ability to relate to young players.

Each candidate's self-assessments then provided the framework for a far more structured second round of interviews.

The subcommittee peppered each contender with individually tailored questions for 40 minutes, while St Kilda president Rod Butterss and board members Mark Kellett and Glen Casey looked on.

Butterss, Kellett and Casey had been asked to just observe this part of the interview – "It was an amazing feat in itself getting three directors not to say anything for 40 minutes," Fraser joked – before getting the chance to pose their own questions in the final 20-30 minutes.

"We wanted to put them under quite significant pressure, not in an aggressive sense, but we wanted to test some of the findings we'd got from the psychometric tests," Fraser said.

"When you hand over the reins to the senior coaching position of your football club it's a massive job and you have to know that they can perform under pressure at the highest level and still deliver on the expectations of the club."

Fraser, Sheldon and Walls agreed each of the candidates performed outstandingly at their interviews, but, according to Fraser, Lyon and McKenna emerged in front.

Ultimately, though, Lyon edged McKenna out.

His football experience was a significant factor.

Walls pointed to Lyon's knowledge of modern stoppage strategies, his strong emphasis on defence and team disciplines, and his experience as head coach of Carlton's VFL team.

Sheldon said Lyon had shown he understood the importance of establishing a strong football department, with cutting-edge development and recruiting programs.

But the Saints also sensed a resilience in Lyon that none of the other candidates had.

"Ross just had a harder edge to him," Walls said.

"He's very intelligent, a very smart guy. He'd done his tertiary education, he'd worked for a recruitment company, Adecco, so he knew what the real world was about, which I think is very important."

Sheldon said Lyon had stood up best to the barrage of questions thrown in the second interview.

"I think Ross just carried himself the best," Sheldon said.

"This premiership caper is a marathon and you've got to have the balls to go all the way and more – that's what it takes.

"Everyone on the shortlist had all those characteristics. But we chose Ross in the end because we thought he was more ready at the time and fitted that little bit better than the others."

After the second interview, Lyon was invited to a barbecue at Butterss' home, when Sheldon said the Saints wanted to gauge over a beer and a meal whether the president and prospective coach's philosophies and values meshed.

Shortly afterwards, the St Kilda board met for several hours and agreed Lyon was its man, sealing a three-year deal with him the following night, almost a month after Thomas' departure.

The following day a report said the Saints had made a last-minute approach to Laidley before signing off on Lyon's appointment.

Fraser was emphatic when asked about that report: "No, that didn't happen."

So the Saints had their man and history would prove it was an astute choice.

After missing the finals in his first season in charge, 2007, Lyon guided St Kilda to four consecutive finals appearances, including the 2009 and 2010 Grand Finals.

As Saints fans know only too well, but for Matthew Scarlett's toe-poke in the 2009 Grand Final and the bad bounce that robbed Stephen Milne of an almost certain goal in the 2010 Grand Final draw, Lyon could be a two-time premiership coach.

Lyon will lead another premiership tilt this Saturday, but this time he is aiming to secure Fremantle's first flag rather than add to the Saints' sole premiership.

Fraser notes wryly that the Saints might have made the wrong decision back in 2006 given Longmire has tasted premiership success as Swans coach since succeeding Roos.

On a more serious note, he says Lyon, 46, is on track to establish himself as one of his generation's elite coaches.

"Ross Lyon will go down as one of the best coaches of the next 10 years," Fraser said.
"I don't think there's any question of that, he's just too detailed and too dedicated not to.

"He just knows what needs to be done and I think everyone who has played under him has come away a better player."

But, as assured as Lyon looks as a senior coach now, Sheldon believes he had doubts about leaving the comfortable anonymity he'd enjoyed as an assistant.

"I have no doubt Ross questioned whether he wanted to be a senior coach," Sheldon said.

"He'd had 11 years under the radar and all of a sudden he was facing the prospect of coming onto the radar.

"There were a lot of opportunities for Ross to step away, but each time he had a good think about it and he came back with conviction and convinced himself – and convinced us – that he was the man for the role."
Walls says his friend and protégé now has no doubts he made the right decision.

"People tend to assume wonderful players in really good sides like Buckley, Voss and Hird will make great coaches," Walls said.

"But Ross was not a great player in a great team, so he had to grind to get his opportunity.

"Now he doesn't leave anything behind, he just puts his head down and he just works.

"He just really appreciates being a senior coach and gives it everything he's got."